WAREHOUSE PLAN SPURS TRUCK TRAFFIC TALKS
Derstine Road is the ‘309 Connector’ for truck traffic
TOWAMENCIN » A long and at times heated debate on Wednesday night led to two concrete results: new approvals for a plan to build three warehouses on Wambold Road, and new vows from the township supervisors to try to address truck traffic near there.
“The consensus is, no matter whether we move forward with this development or not, we have to address the truck problem on Derstine Road,” said supervisors Chairman Chuck Wilson.
“At the same time, we have to put a full court effort onto getting a total ban on truck traffic on Derstine — there’s a way we can get this done,” he said.
At issue is a plan discussed since early 2017 by developer Core 5 to build a complex of three warehouse buildings totaling just over 591,000 square feet on a 75-acre parcel east of Wambold Road, just south of its intersection with Allentown and Derstine Roads.
After an outlining of the plans and a conditional use hearing, residents Jackie Swanson and Janine David of Kimberly Way, Lisa Picozzi of Katherine Way and Sheryl Ciotti of Sterling Way showed the board
an online petition with over 170 signatures opposing the project, and a series of photos they said were of tractor-trailer trucks from various businesses in the region, causing backups and potential hazards by trying to navigate Derstine, Allentown and Wambold Roads.
“This area of Towamencin Township is not ready to handle the increased truck traffic that is proposed at this point,” said Ciotti.
“There have been attempted fixes so far, and the township has done what they can to put things into place. However, you will see that those fixes have not been effective at all,” she said.
As they spoke, Ciotti and Swanson showed photos of large trucks trying to navigate their neighborhood, crossing into the opposite lanes while making turns, turning around on side streets, and heading down the same streets where school children wait for buses on the shoulder of the roadway, since the area
has no sidewalks.
“Unfortunately, rather than turning onto Clemens (Road), they’re coming all the way down Derstine Road, toward Allentown. Right now, they’re using that as the 309 Connector,” Ciotti said.
The long-discussed 309 Connector is a planned highway between Route 309 in Hilltown Township and Route 476 in Towamencin, that would run in part along Wambold and parallel to Derstine. Over the past several years, nearby Franconia and Hatfield townships have banned truck traffic on several parallel roads, moves the neighbors said have channeled those trucks onto their stretch of Derstine, and its offset intersection with Allentown and a dangerous bend near Kimberly Way.
“As you approach this blind bend in the road, this is what really makes Derstine dangerous. Everybody looks at an aerial view, and thinks ‘How dangerous can that be? It’s a straight shot,’ but you’d be surprised how abrupt that bend is,” Swanson said.
“You don’t know what’s going on around the corner: if a bus is stopped, if
cars are backed up. You don’t know if there’s a red light, you have no ability to see what’s ahead,” she said.
While they’re home for now due to COVID-19, roughly 30 kids in that neighborhood take buses to various North Penn schools, Swanson said, and district regulations currently call for those kids to be picked up at the end of their driveways where no sidewalks exist — meaning multiple bus stops along that stretch.
“A truck coming around this corner would never be able to see if a bus has stopped, and could very well cause a rear-ending accident. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. I just wanted to emphasize the cute little faces that are at that bus stop,” Swanson said.
The neighbors showed the most recent plans for the 309 Connector, with a second phase slated to start in 2021 and run until 2024 or 2025, with no firm timeline or funding for the third phase between Hatfield-Souderton Pike and 309 itself.
“(Phase two) really does not provide any solution, because it doesn’t connect to 309. We still have to have
a connector, and the connector, unfortunately for us, is Derstine Road,” Swanson said.
The residents’ presentation prompted a lengthy discussion between the board, the neighbors, the developer’s team, and police Chief Tim Dickinson on enforcement the police department does now, and possible solutions.
“We’ve been there over 100 times since November 2018, and stopped over 40 trucks. We’ve gone to the local businesses, and asked them to tell their carriers not to use it,” Dickinson said.
Board Chairman Chuck Wilson suggested staff and police resume talks with Hatfield Township on adding a truck ban along both directions of Derstine, rather than the current ban on northbound trucks only, and on ways to add more signage prohibiting trucks in that area.
“There are other options, such as unilaterally putting that restriction on Derstine Road, which is going to create problems, because there’s no place for those trucks to turn,” Wilson said.
“If (Hatfield) would allow us to put up the signs that are required, we can put the ban in our section. That’s a fallback position,” he said.
Township traffic engineer Chad Camburn said his firm estimates the new warehouse would generate roughly 189 new truck trips per day, and the developer’s traffic engineer Benjamin Guthrie said while no users of the new warehouse have been finalized, the location between the two highways makes the site an ideal one for truck traffic.
“We believe one of the reasons it’s marketable is easy access to 476. And we really tried to design improvements to facilitate all trucks to the left (onto Wambold Road), and make it the path of least resistance to access the interstate highway,” Guthrie said.
Supervisor Rich Marino asked the residents if their concerns would be reduced if the two-way ban on Derstine was accomplished, and noted the bans in the two neighboring townships seemed to be followed by the drivers now using Derstine.
“It’s a problem. It’s a known problem, and I
think you did a very good job presenting it. What we’ll have to do is to try to satisfy both, and you have to have the wisdom of Solomon sometimes to work that out,” he said.
Supervisor Dan Littley encouraged the neighbors to take their presentation on the truck traffic concerns to state lawmakers, particularly State Rep. Liz Hanbidge, to push for more and faster funding for the 309 connector there.
Supervisor Laura Smith added that recent changes on Hatfield’s board of commissioners may make that body more open to revisiting the truck ban. “... It’s time for Hatfield to be a good neighbor, and rethink what they’ve done,” she said.
After nearly three hours of discussion on the project and the truck traffic, the board voted unanimously to grant plan approval, then held a separate vote to authorize Dickinson to use up to eight hours a week of police overtime to enforce the current truck ban there.
“And tell them not to be nice guys,” Smith said.
Prior to the resident presentation and discussion on truck traffic, attorney Mike Clement, engineer John Anderson and traffic engineer Benjamin Guthrie detailed the latest changes to those plans since earlier presentations in 2018.
To start, the team showed how the three warehouse buildings would be built side-to-side, with an entrance off of Wambold Road at what is currently a three-sided intersection with Schoolhouse Road, where the driveway entrance to the complex will become the fourth leg of the intersection. A second right-in, right-out driveway farther south on Wambold would be added, leading to internal driveways connecting and surrounding the three buildings, each of which would be surrounded by parking spaces.
“The code requires the warehouse be parked at one space per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area. In this project, it translates to 591.6, or 592 parking spaces required for this development,” Anderson said.
“On this plan, we are proposing to construct 476 typical passenger vehicle parking spaces,” he said, with
118 to be held in reserve and only built if needed.
That request was the main focus of the conditional use hearing, and township solicitor Jack Dooley said the board would grant a decision on that matter within 45 days. Following that formal hearing, the team made a more detailed presentation while seeking preliminary and final land development approval, followed by the separate presentation from neighbors spelling out, and showing, their worries about truck traffic already there.
During the land development presentation, the team of consultants said they plan to comply with “the vast majority,” in Clement’s words, of the comments in various review letters from township consultants, and underground storage tanks will be built below each building to contain stormwater before draining it, below a corridor containing PECO power lines, into a new basin and an existing creek running across the south end of the site.
The developer and attorney also told the board that any changes to the stream and how it handles stormwater discharge would likely require permitting from the state Department of Environmental Protection and federal Army Corps of Engineers, approvals that would require 18 to 24 more months of vetting and approvals if deemed necessary by the board. The developer instead has offered a contribution of $47,500 to be used for stream restoration or stormwater management elsewhere in the township, Clement said.
Other waiver requests included a fee in lieu of dedicating part of the property as open space, a waiver from requirements to widen part of Wambold Road, deferral of requirements to add sidewalks along Wambold and to build trails through the site, a $246,000 traffic impact fee, and other waiver requests regarding the number of stormwater inlets on the site. Township engineer Tom Zarko said he and his firm had vetted all review letters and waiver requests, and had no issues with any.
Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 26; for more information visit www.Towamencin.org.